1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a comb and particularly to a comb for removing lice, nits and/or lice eggs from human hair or for removing lice, nits and/or lice eggs or fleas from animal hair or fur.
2. Description of Related Art
Fine toothed hair combs are well known. However, known fine toothed combs, which may be used for smoothing and straightening hair to a desired extent, suffer from a disadvantage that they cannot readily be passed through the hair, particularly if the hair is tangled. It is therefore also well known to provide a comb with a single row of teeth in two portions, a second portion having teeth which are more finely spaced than the first portion. Hair may then be first coarsely combed with the portion having more coarsely spaced teeth and then more finely combed with the portion having more finely spaced teeth.
Such an arrangement is not practical for a finely spaced teeth comb for the removal of lice, nits—i.e. empty egg shells, lice eggs, fleas and similar parasites because such a comb has preferably to be passed through the hair in contact with the human scalp or body of an animal along the whole length of the comb. Because of the curvature of the scalp or body, this restricts the length of a straight comb. Although, in principle, a nit comb of twice the normal length could be used first with one portion with more widely spaced teeth, and then with the another portion with more closely spaced teeth, this is inconvenient, and there is no guarantee that the comb would be properly used by an inexperienced user. For example, such a user may seek to use the full length of the comb in each pass through the hair, and thereby not keep the whole length of the comb in contact with the scalp or body, and smaller parasites would also pass between the more widely spaced teeth.
A hair comb having two rows of teeth is known from GB-539653-A in which a first row of teeth in coarsely spaced and a second row of teeth is finely spaced so that the first row of teeth coarsely combs the hair before the relatively finely spaced teeth comb the hair. The two rows of teeth of the disclosure are preferably formed with a convex curvature to provide a smoothing action on the hair. Teeth of one of the rows are shorter than the teeth of the other row. This facilitates the use of the comb at an acute angle to the scalp. The teeth are tapering and a preferred spacing of a first row of teeth is an integer multiple of the spacing of the second row of teeth, so that teeth on the finely spaced row may be aligned with spaces between teeth of the more coarsely spaced row of teeth. It is asserted that with this comb the hair can be coarsely combed with the coarsely spaced teeth and finely combed with the finely combed teeth in one motion through the hair.
Such a comb as disclosed in GB-539653-A has a number of disadvantages for the removal of head lice, nits and eggs and fleas. The presence of rows of teeth of different lengths means that the comb cannot effectively be used substantially perpendicular to the scalp, which is the preferred orientation for the removal of head lice, nits, eggs and fleas. Moreover, the tapering shape of the teeth means that there is a tapering space between the teeth, so that a uniform barrier is not presented to the head lice, nits and eggs and fleas. Thus, objects of a given size may be trapped in a narrow portion of the tapering space but pass through a wider portion of the tapering space between teeth. The restriction of the spacing of one row of teeth being an integer multiple of the spacing of the second row of teeth also means that the spacings may not be optimised for the entrapment of large lice and fleas and also smaller lice, nits and eggs and fleas.
There is also known from GB 2342291 a hair comb with a handle and two rows of teeth, the teeth of the first row of teeth being of substantially the same length as the teeth of the second row of teeth, wherein the spacing of the teeth is arranged for the removal of head lice and/or nits and/or head lice eggs from combed hair. The handle has an advantage of permitting the comb to be more firmly grasped than a handle-less comb. Although this comb is useful in removing head lice, nits and head lice eggs it has a disadvantage that it is preferably only passed through the hair in one direction, with the more widely spaced row of teeth leading. Unlike some known nit combs without an extending handle, the comb cannot be readily reversed and still grasped by the handle. This is not particularly disadvantage when, for example, a parent is combing a child's hair, but for a user combing their own hair both a left-handed comb and a right-handed comb are ideally required. Similarly, when combing a pet's or other animal's hair it would be preferable to be able to use a same comb in either direction.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a comb suitable for the removal of head lice, nits and head lice eggs or fleas which at least partially overcomes at least some of the above problems in the prior art.